Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Is it paranoid to know that one's social class is a lot less valuable than others' social class. Extreme class differentials are divisive.

Very true, but the solution to that doesn't lie through guns.

Yes, it's not as though the poor need to defend themselves from the rich. Rather, gun protect egos from vulnerability, which would otherwise feel disempowered and humiliated by societal inequality: "I might be poor but I can still shoot your [donkey synonym] off".

[Belindi]

Is it paranoid to know that one's social class is a lot less valuable than others' social class. Extreme class differentials are divisive.

Very true, but the solution to that doesn't lie through guns.

Yes, it's not as though the poor need to defend themselves from the rich. Rather, gun protect egos from vulnerability, which would otherwise feel disempowered and humiliated by societal inequality: "I might be poor but I can still shoot your [donkey synonym] off".

The "paranoia problem " among Americans can be reduced by brave politicians who are not tools of the Gun Lobby, and who also increase the quality of education.

My remedy as above omits to say how education for enforced leisure actually works. Apart from a firearm, well paid work, and other benefits of the pig-trough, what makes an adult feel worthy?

[LuckyR]

Is it paranoid to know that one's social class is a lot less valuable than others' social class. Extreme class differentials are divisive.

Very true, but the solution to that doesn't lie through guns.

Yes, it's not as though the poor need to defend themselves from the rich. Rather, gun protect egos from vulnerability, which would otherwise feel disempowered and humiliated by societal inequality: "I might be poor but I can still shoot your [donkey synonym] off".

The "paranoia problem " among Americans can be reduced by brave politicians who are not tools of the Gun Lobby, and who also increase the quality of education.

My remedy as above omits to say how education for enforced leisure actually works. Apart from a firearm, well paid work, and other benefits of the pig-trough, what makes an adult feel worthy?

I would describe American paranoia thusly: say you are the rich elite, you want to make government policy to protect and increase your wealth, but you are too few in number to win elections. Solution: distract low information voters with racial tension and jingoism. Voilà, a pre-made voting bloc, election wins, gerrymandering to continue the win and paranoia (with a side benefit of an increase in retail gun sales, win, win, win. Laughing all the way to the bank.)

[Belindi]

Very true, but the solution to that doesn't lie through guns.

Yes, it's not as though the poor need to defend themselves from the rich. Rather, gun protect egos from vulnerability, which would otherwise feel disempowered and humiliated by societal inequality: "I might be poor but I can still shoot your [donkey synonym] off".

The "paranoia problem " among Americans can be reduced by brave politicians who are not tools of the Gun Lobby, and who also increase the quality of education.

My remedy as above omits to say how education for enforced leisure actually works. Apart from a firearm, well paid work, and other benefits of the pig-trough, what makes an adult feel worthy?

I would describe American paranoia thusly: say you are the rich elite, you want to make government policy to protect and increase your wealth, but you are too few in number to win elections. Solution: distract low information voters with racial tension and jingoism. Voilà, a pre-made voting bloc, election wins, gerrymandering to continue the win and paranoia (with a side benefit of an increase in retail gun sales, win, win, win. Laughing all the way to the bank.)

Is it then a policy of right wing regimes to keep school children divided into well-informed families and "low information voters" families?

For instance, how did the Trump regime allocated funding to state schools? Were schools in information-deprived districts deliberately not specially enriched so that children could break out of the cycle of information- deprivation?

Rich elites were ever so, plus that the more centralised the hold of the regime, the less information the poorer people have. With independence from the British Crown the USA should have broken away from entitlement of the ruling elite. The way I see it is that British (and Belgian and French)colonialism made the investors thrive, and American investors did likewise. It is well known that British wealth is founded on the slave trade, and so is American wealth. The rich elites are to a significant extent an international force for their own benefit. Even today huge tracts of British land are owned by Russians and Arabs.

[Sy Borg]

With independence from the British Crown the USA should have broken away from entitlement of the ruling elite. The way I see it is that British (and Belgian and French)colonialism made the investors thrive, and American investors did likewise. It is well known that British wealth is founded on the slave trade, and so is American wealth. The rich elites are to a significant extent an international force for their own benefit. Even today huge tracts of British land are owned by Russians and Arabs.

Not only has the US failed to break away from models requiring a ruling elite but, if not for COVID, they would have installed a new royal family.

[LuckyR]

Yes, it's not as though the poor need to defend themselves from the rich. Rather, gun protect egos from vulnerability, which would otherwise feel disempowered and humiliated by societal inequality: "I might be poor but I can still shoot your [donkey synonym] off".

The "paranoia problem " among Americans can be reduced by brave politicians who are not tools of the Gun Lobby, and who also increase the quality of education.

My remedy as above omits to say how education for enforced leisure actually works. Apart from a firearm, well paid work, and other benefits of the pig-trough, what makes an adult feel worthy?

I would describe American paranoia thusly: say you are the rich elite, you want to make government policy to protect and increase your wealth, but you are too few in number to win elections. Solution: distract low information voters with racial tension and jingoism. Voilà, a pre-made voting bloc, election wins, gerrymandering to continue the win and paranoia (with a side benefit of an increase in retail gun sales, win, win, win. Laughing all the way to the bank.)

Is it then a policy of right wing regimes to keep school children divided into well-informed families and "low information voters" families?

For instance, how did the Trump regime allocated funding to state schools? Were schools in information-deprived districts deliberately not specially enriched so that children could break out of the cycle of information- deprivation?

Rich elites were ever so, plus that the more centralised the hold of the regime, the less information the poorer people have. With independence from the British Crown the USA should have broken away from entitlement of the ruling elite. The way I see it is that British (and Belgian and French)colonialism made the investors thrive, and American investors did likewise. It is well known that British wealth is founded on the slave trade, and so is American wealth. The rich elites are to a significant extent an international force for their own benefit. Even today huge tracts of British land are owned by Russians and Arabs.

While historically the wealthy in democracies pursued the same goals, the advent of the media industry followed by net based media put the strategy into hyperdrive. No need to wait for educational policies to trickle through to adulthood voting patterns, you can recruit poor folks to vote for the elite money/power grab right here, right now.

[Belindi]

The "paranoia problem " among Americans can be reduced by brave politicians who are not tools of the Gun Lobby, and who also increase the quality of education.

My remedy as above omits to say how education for enforced leisure actually works. Apart from a firearm, well paid work, and other benefits of the pig-trough, what makes an adult feel worthy?

I would describe American paranoia thusly: say you are the rich elite, you want to make government policy to protect and increase your wealth, but you are too few in number to win elections. Solution: distract low information voters with racial tension and jingoism. Voilà, a pre-made voting bloc, election wins, gerrymandering to continue the win and paranoia (with a side benefit of an increase in retail gun sales, win, win, win. Laughing all the way to the bank.)

Is it then a policy of right wing regimes to keep school children divided into well-informed families and "low information voters" families?

For instance, how did the Trump regime allocated funding to state schools? Were schools in information-deprived districts deliberately not specially enriched so that children could break out of the cycle of information- deprivation?

Rich elites were ever so, plus that the more centralised the hold of the regime, the less information the poorer people have. With independence from the British Crown the USA should have broken away from entitlement of the ruling elite. The way I see it is that British (and Belgian and French)colonialism made the investors thrive, and American investors did likewise. It is well known that British wealth is founded on the slave trade, and so is American wealth. The rich elites are to a significant extent an international force for their own benefit. Even today huge tracts of British land are owned by Russians and Arabs.

While historically the wealthy in democracies pursued the same goals, the advent of the media industry followed by net based media put the strategy into hyperdrive. No need to wait for educational policies to trickle through to adulthood voting patterns, you can recruit poor folks to vote for the elite money/power grab right here, right now.

Is there an independent newspaper or TV channel in the US?
I note that many media people, and some celebrities too, are both honest and brave.
How might the narrative, as supported by for example Lucky, be told so that information-deprived people may understand it? Is confirmation bias the main difficulty?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2017 ... -to-reason

[LuckyR]

I would describe American paranoia thusly: say you are the rich elite, you want to make government policy to protect and increase your wealth, but you are too few in number to win elections. Solution: distract low information voters with racial tension and jingoism. Voilà, a pre-made voting bloc, election wins, gerrymandering to continue the win and paranoia (with a side benefit of an increase in retail gun sales, win, win, win. Laughing all the way to the bank.)

Is it then a policy of right wing regimes to keep school children divided into well-informed families and "low information voters" families?

For instance, how did the Trump regime allocated funding to state schools? Were schools in information-deprived districts deliberately not specially enriched so that children could break out of the cycle of information- deprivation?

Rich elites were ever so, plus that the more centralised the hold of the regime, the less information the poorer people have. With independence from the British Crown the USA should have broken away from entitlement of the ruling elite. The way I see it is that British (and Belgian and French)colonialism made the investors thrive, and American investors did likewise. It is well known that British wealth is founded on the slave trade, and so is American wealth. The rich elites are to a significant extent an international force for their own benefit. Even today huge tracts of British land are owned by Russians and Arabs.

While historically the wealthy in democracies pursued the same goals, the advent of the media industry followed by net based media put the strategy into hyperdrive. No need to wait for educational policies to trickle through to adulthood voting patterns, you can recruit poor folks to vote for the elite money/power grab right here, right now.

Is there an independent newspaper or TV channel in the US?
I note that many media people, and some celebrities too, are both honest and brave.
How might the narrative, as supported by for example Lucky, be told so that information-deprived people may understand it? Is confirmation bias the main difficulty?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2017 ... -to-reason

That is so two generations ago. Almost no one in the bottom quarter of the economic ladder gets their "news" from a newspaper or broadcast TV channel. Folks get their "information" from their news feed on their social media platform. As we all know these are displayed based on an algorithm using previous searches as data points. So supercomputers comb the interweb for searches correlated with voting patterns and pump news feeds of those individuals with increasingly partisan articles in the direction the algorithm has computed.

[Belindi]

Is it then a policy of right wing regimes to keep school children divided into well-informed families and "low information voters" families?

For instance, how did the Trump regime allocated funding to state schools? Were schools in information-deprived districts deliberately not specially enriched so that children could break out of the cycle of information- deprivation?

Rich elites were ever so, plus that the more centralised the hold of the regime, the less information the poorer people have. With independence from the British Crown the USA should have broken away from entitlement of the ruling elite. The way I see it is that British (and Belgian and French)colonialism made the investors thrive, and American investors did likewise. It is well known that British wealth is founded on the slave trade, and so is American wealth. The rich elites are to a significant extent an international force for their own benefit. Even today huge tracts of British land are owned by Russians and Arabs.

While historically the wealthy in democracies pursued the same goals, the advent of the media industry followed by net based media put the strategy into hyperdrive. No need to wait for educational policies to trickle through to adulthood voting patterns, you can recruit poor folks to vote for the elite money/power grab right here, right now.

Is there an independent newspaper or TV channel in the US?
I note that many media people, and some celebrities too, are both honest and brave.
How might the narrative, as supported by for example Lucky, be told so that information-deprived people may understand it? Is confirmation bias the main difficulty?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2017 ... -to-reason

That is so two generations ago. Almost no one in the bottom quarter of the economic ladder gets their "news" from a newspaper or broadcast TV channel. Folks get their "information" from their news feed on their social media platform. As we all know these are displayed based on an algorithm using previous searches as data points. So supercomputers comb the interweb for searches correlated with voting patterns and pump news feeds of those individuals with increasingly partisan articles in the direction the algorithm has computed.

I hope that is a challenge for thinkers to find a way to inform the people on the bottom quarter of the economic ladder.

Confirmatory evidence strengthened people's views, as you'd expect, but so did disconfirmatory evidence. That's right, anti-death penalty people became more anti-death penalty when shown pro-death penalty evidence (and vice versa). A clear example of biased reasoning.

from the article I cited in my last post.

The article goes on to claim that confirmatory bias is dealt with by asking people to imagine how they would feel if the evidence pointed in the other direction. For instance if the evidence pointed in the direction of 'Burning fossil fuels is good for the environment' would you support getting energy from burning fossil fuels? People are asked to consider questions as if, like a jury, they were to consider the evidence alone, without prejudging it.

[ernestm]

First the Second:

As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

I could not watch the news this morning save for only one story: 27 people, 20 of which were children between 5-10 years old were gunned down by a lone gunman who also killed his mother who was teaching the children at the time. Gun control advocates can now celebrate {cynicism intentional}. Again they will start to call for more draconian anti-gun laws to protect the public - But will this really protect the public? Australia after a similar incident some years ago outlawed all guns. And then the crime rate went up so high they had to rescind the law. In the USA with many millions of guns already in the hands of the public a gun ban would cause, to use an old saying: "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns".

So how can 'we the people' be protected from the lone mad gunman determined to kill? We can not be protected completely, both guns and for that matter life itself is dangerous. Recently a lone swordsman dispatched a bunch of people in Japan and don't forget terrorist bombers who kill many more with no guns at all. So what do we do? If we took the Second Amendment literally and allowed the the right of the people to bear arms, this mass murder scenario would end. If enough of the 'well armed militia' was in fact armed the public would no longer be subjected to mass murderers; they could be stopped before their carnage was complete. To quote a somewhat controversial politician of years past" "A well armed society is a polite society" -G. Gordon Liddy

So to answer your question, there are a lot of nuts about the 2nd amendment around, but the legal position on it is actually the Supreme Court's 2008 Heller Decision. It states the following:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved. Pp. 22–28.

(c) The Court’s interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights in state constitutions that preceded and immediately followed the Second Amendment . Pp. 28–30.

(d) The Second Amendment ’s drafting history, while of dubious interpretive worth, reveals three state Second Amendment proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Pp. 30–32.

(e) Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.

(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 , nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 , refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54.

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.

As the Heller Decision only passed by a 5:4 vote, the executive and legislative wings of government actually have quite a strong mandate to pass gun-control measures. The objections frequently stated against such efforts should propose alternate legislation to meet the same objective, but the opposition never does, so it is quite obvious the issue is not constitutional. It is emotional.

[GE Morton]

As the Heller Decision only passed by a 5:4 vote, the executive and legislative wings of government actually have quite a strong mandate to pass gun-control measures.

Supreme Court decisions don't impose any mandates ("must dos") on Congress. They can only impose constraints ("must nots"). Moreover, given the current composition of that court the Heller decision is not likely to be reversed any time soon.

The objections frequently stated against such efforts should propose alternate legislation to meet the same objective, but the opposition never does, so it is quite obvious the issue is not constitutional. It is emotional.

Alternatives have been proposed, mainly, remove criminals from the streets and keep them off.

[ernestm]

Im not quite sure what you mean, but I never said the Heller decision should be reversed. 'Mandates' are informal, they are not 'imposed,' but merely indicate the level of obligation the executive and legislative have to do something, in this case, quite a bit, as the Heller Decision made no specific statements about the method of limiting rights.

[Robert66]

... confirmatory bias is dealt with by asking people to imagine how they would feel if the evidence pointed in the other direction. For instance if the evidence pointed in the direction of 'Burning fossil fuels is good for the environment' would you support getting energy from burning fossil fuels? People are asked to consider questions as if, like a jury, they were to consider the evidence alone, without prejudging it.

OK then - how well would this strategy work in dealing with gun control? Imagine for argument's sake that I am an 18 year old Texan, now able to legally buy guns, which I intend doing. The fact that it is so easy to buy guns in my state confirms my bias - it is legal for me to buy a hand gun in a private sale, without any background check or permit required, so why not? The fact that people in my state are being shot at all the time confirms my bias, especially when people like Ted Cruz say that "what stops armed bad guys is armed good guys". He is a Senator, so he must know what he is talking about. Everyone over 18 at my church carries a gun, and they are good Christians.

What will you ask me to consider? That I will be safer if I DON'T buy a gun? My inclination is to think that does not make sense.

[Sy Borg]

I have hoped for decades that the US would stop the suffering and have been surprised at the ruthlessness of the NRA and gun lobby (who are richly funded by arms manufacturers). I wrongly assumed that the carnage would reach an intolerable point, where even the Ted Cruzes of this world would see the wisdom of licensing owners and registering guns, as is the case with drivers and their cars.

Clearly, there is no level of atrocity that can make a difference, so one must either remain tormented by the injustice of it all or re-frame the situation.

There are around eight billion people on Earth, with ever deepening problems related to climate change, conflict, extinctions, ecosystem breakdown, overfishing, desertification, soil salination, diminishing freshwater supplies and societal breakdown.

Given that owning a gun greatly increases a family's chances of being killed by gunfire, there is is a Dawinian aspect to this situation. The same applied to anti-vaxxers and COVID. Further, guns reduce the problem of anti-euthanasia laws, allowing those with painful terminal illness to die with dignity at a time of their own choosing rather than pointlessly enduring torture. Also, criminals will be per capita disproportionately represented in gun deaths, so there is an element of (drastic) self correction there.

So okay Americans, if you need the right to shoot each other up, then so it goes. Just as Chinese have the need to be tightly controlled. I feel sorry for non-violent Americans who dislike guns, but the greatest powers in your country have sold you out to the booming arms industry.

It sucks, but many things in life suck. In fact, things-that-suck utterly dominate all news cycles. People don't want good news, they want their stultified base survival instincts stimulated. I have tried to find good news outlets and, by God, they are boring! While there is a sense that Armageddon is just around the corner, it's hard to remember a time when Armageddon wasn't just around the corner.

Existential dread is just part of the package of life. Sadly, Americans have more reason to dread the future than other westerners - especially regarding child safety at school. Still, on the plus side, regular school carnage will surely increase home schooling and other more innovative education methods rather than cramming large numbers of kids together with inadequate supervision and force-feeding them dated information. That model has already passed its use-by date.

[GE Morton]

I have hoped for decades that the US would stop the suffering and have been surprised at the ruthlessness of the NRA and gun lobby (who are richly funded by arms manufacturers). I wrongly assumed that the carnage would reach an intolerable point, where even the Ted Cruzes of this world would see the wisdom of licensing owners and registering guns, as is the case with drivers and their cars.

Clearly, there is no level of atrocity that can make a difference, so one must either remain tormented by the injustice of it all or re-frame the situation.

There are around eight billion people on Earth, with ever deepening problems related to climate change, conflict, extinctions, ecosystem breakdown, overfishing, desertification, soil salination, diminishing freshwater supplies and societal breakdown.

Given that owning a gun greatly increases a family's chances of being killed by gunfire, there is is a Dawinian aspect to this situation. The same applied to anti-vaxxers and COVID. Further, guns reduce the problem of anti-euthanasia laws, allowing those with painful terminal illness to die with dignity at a time of their own choosing rather than pointlessly enduring torture. Also, criminals will be per capita disproportionately represented in gun deaths, so there is an element of (drastic) self correction there.

So okay Americans, if you need the right to shoot each other up, then so it goes. Just as Chinese have the need to be tightly controlled. I feel sorry for non-violent Americans who dislike guns, but the greatest powers in your country have sold you out to the booming arms industry.

It sucks, but many things in life suck. In fact, things-that-suck utterly dominate all news cycles. People don't want good news, they want their stultified base survival instincts stimulated. I have tried to find good news outlets and, by God, they are boring! While there is a sense that Armageddon is just around the corner, it's hard to remember a time when Armageddon wasn't just around the corner.

Existential dread is just part of the package of life. Sadly, Americans have more reason to dread the future than other westerners - especially regarding child safety at school. Still, on the plus side, regular school carnage will surely increase home schooling and other more innovative education methods rather than cramming large numbers of kids together with inadequate supervision and force-feeding them dated information. That model has already passed its use-by date.